The Pilgrims of Rayne

FIRST EARTH

They were security dados from Quillan. No mistake. I knew them too well. They had that square Frankenstein look that made them seem human but… not. They each had a golden stun pistol in a holster belted at the waist. The odd thing was that they weren’t wearing the green security uniforms. Their clothes were raggy and torn, as if they had been through a war. I definitely got a Night of the Living Dead zombie vibe, which chilled me. Bottom line? These weren’t friends.

“Get outta here!” I shouted to Courtney.

She took a step toward the door and stopped when she realized I wasn’t following.

“C’mon!”

“I’ll catch up. Watch out for trains!”

“Bobby!” she pleaded. “I’m not leaving you.”

“One of us has to find Mark!” I shouted. “Go!”

Courtney hesitated. I knew she didn’t want to leave, but one of us had to be sure to get out of that tunnel or Mark would be lost. She knew that, so she ran for the door. She opened it quickly, glanced back at me, and was gone.

I didn’t know what these goons were after, but it couldn’t be good. Their presence alone on First Earth wasn’t good. I couldn’t let them get beyond this cavern. Problem was, there were lots of them and not-lots of me. I had one chance and I had to take it.

“Quillan!” I shouted.

The flume sprang to life. My idea was to send them back to where they came from. The dados stopped and looked back into the tunnel curiously. They looked like confused dogs who didn’t know what to make of a strange sound. Their curiosity cost them. Light blasted from the tunnel and enveloped them. I didn’t know how many of them were in the flume, but they got sucked back in and sent on their way home to Quillan. My idea worked. I let out a relieved breath…

A little too soon. One of them realized what was happening. Before the pull of the flume could grab him, he sprang forward, leaping out of the tunnel and into the cavern. I was ready. I braced myself, expecting him to jump me. He didn’t. Instead he ran right past me, headed for the door to the subway. Whatever their mission was, it wasn’t to mess with me. In that brief instant I had the sick feeling that they weren’t there because of Courtney and me-I feared they were coming to invade First Earth.

I had to attack. That wasn’t something I was used to doing or even knew how to do. Loor had taught me to defend myself, not be the aggressor. Most of her training was about letting the other guy make the mistakes. If I had done that, the dado would have left me alone standing there at the gate, crouched down, ready to defend myself. Looking stupid.

Bright light from the flume filled the cavern as I spun and tackled the robot from behind, wrapping my arms around his legs. He sprawled forward, hitting the rock wall next to thewooden door with his shoulder. Hard. The impact was strong enough to knock a chunk of rock out of the wall. The robot didn’t even grunt. Not good. Dados didn’t feel pain, which meant they had no fear. I didn’t know what to do, so I held his legs in a bear hug. His clothing crumbled in my grip, as if the fabric were rotten. Weird. But I didn’t let go.

I could feel the strength of his robot legs. He was a machine. I wasn’t. My only hope was to somehow wrestle the dado back into the flume and send us both out of there. There was no way I could beat the mechanical thug in a fight without a weapon.

A weapon! I quickly reached up to grab his pistol from its holster. Bad idea. The dado’s leg was free. He kneed me in the head. I fell back, reeling. I saw stars, and not the kind you see through the flume. I had to shake it off fast or this thing would be loose on First Earth. I scrambled back to my feet to see I had given the dado an idea. He was reaching for his pistol. Oops. I looked around desperately. The light was already receding into the flume. I had missed the bus. Could I activate it again quickly? Nope. Not before this thing would take a shot at me. The only thing I could do was attack.

I leaped forward, launching myself parallel to the ground. I hit the robot as it fired and… Fum! The dado fell backward as the charge from its weapon smashed the wall, blasting out a spray of rocks. The dado landed on its back. I landed on the dado. For a brief instant I was eye to eye with the robot, staring into its mechanical, lifeless doll eyes. Yikes.

The moment didn’t last long. The robot threw me off like I was made of straw. I was running out of ideas, not that I had that many in the first place. I hit the ground and rolled toward the mouth of the flume.

“Quillan!” I shouted again. The flume sprang back to life. It was the only thing I could think of doing, though I had no idea how I was going to wrestle the dado into the tunnel. As the light from the flume began to fill the cavern, I stood with my back to the entrance. The dado stood with its back to the door of the cavern. It was a standoff. No, I take that back. The dado was in complete control. The only thing I could do was step back into the flume and get out of there. The dado raised its pistol, aiming at me. I instinctively took a step back, then stopped. I couldn’t leave. I had to let it shoot me. At least when I came to, I’d still be on First Earth and could figure out a way to chase it down. Leaving wasn’t an option. I braced myself, ready to get nailed.

The dado didn’t fire. It held the gun on me, keeping me back as it took a step toward the door. It didn’t care about me. I was nothing more than a nuisance. It wanted to get to First Earth. There was nothing I could do. The dado knew it. While keeping its doll eyes on me, it reached back for the door that was the gate to the flume. With one quick movement, it holstered its pistol, pulled the door open, and sprang out into the tunnel…

As a subway train came barreling by.

The dado hit the train. Or the train hit the dado. I guess the specifics didn’t matter. What did matter was that the robot was thrown under the wheels of the speeding locomotive. The engineer hit the brakes. It must have been a shock for him to see a man suddenly jump in front of his train from out of nowhere. A horrible screeching sound filled the tunnel. It was so shrill I felt as if it were cutting into my brain. It was followed quickly by a rumble and the sound of twisting, wrenching metal. I ran to the doorway to see the train was jumping the tracks! If it was full of passengers, it would be a disaster.

Through the tortured sound of metal being twisted, the big train bucked and rocked, moments from flipping over.

There was nothing I could do but watch through the open doorway. I flashed back to the disaster of the Hindenburg. Would this go down in history as a tragedy on that level? Was this my fault? Was my presence on First Earth going to be the cause of a new epic disaster?

I saw the wheels near me lift off the track as they flew by. I held my breath. The brakes shrieked. But then the wheels came crashing back down onto the track. It wasn’t going over. Its forward movement was slowing. People weren’t going to die. The train groaned to a stop. This was going to be a massive bottleneck that would mess up the subway system for who knew how long, but it wasn’t going to be a disaster.

I had to get my head back together, fast. What should I do? Hide? Flume out of there? Run after Courtney? I took a deep breath to calm myself. The dado. I had to get rid of the dado, or what was left of it. The smell of hot oil and brake fluid filled the tunnel. I felt safe enough to poke my head out to survey the carnage. Looking both ways, I saw that the train had only three cars. Several yards to my right, the wheels of the engine were off the track. The other cars had somehow managed to stay gripped to the steel, but this train wasn’t going anywhere. I figured the dado had gotten caught under the engine’s wheels, causing the derailing. Soon there would be all sorts of emergency people flooding the tunnel. They’d find a wreck, and a mysterious robot that would seem as if it had dropped in from another planet. There was nothing I could do about the wreck, but I had to hide the evidence of what had caused it.

Smoke filled the tunnel, burning my eyes. Nobody had left the train cars yet. They must have all been in shock. Or too afraid to move. I figured I’d have a short window of opportunity. I moved as quickly as I could without tripping or bashing myself into something. I made my way toward the engine, while scanning the ground for any signs of the dado. I didn’t see anything at first and had the fleeting thought that the robot had survived. I had no idea how strong the dado was. It was definitely solid enough to derail a train. Would it be strong enough to walk away after getting slammed like that?

I had only gotten a few feet when I saw, well, a few feet. Lying next to the track were the legs of the dado. It wasn’t moving. It was done. I didn’t appreciate just how done it was until I grabbed the feet and started to pull it back toward the gate. The dado was a lot lighter than I expected. That’s because I was only pulling half a dado. Yeah, gross. The robot had been cut in two at the waist. I dropped the legs, feeling all sorts of disgusted.

I had to force myself to get a grip. This wasn’t a person. It was a machine. It wasn’t any more human than a toaster oven.

I looked under the engine to see the upper half. Okay, so maybe it was a lot more gruesome than seeing a toaster oven cut in half. But still. I couldn’t let the fact that

I wanted to puke stop me. I was already hearing the shouts of people coming from the subway station, calling to the passengers to see if they were okay. I had to move quickly. I grabbed the legs again and dragged them to the gate. As I pulled the legs along,

I noticed again that the clothing was flimsy and rotted. The security dados on Quillan wore crisp, green uniforms. This clothing was so threadbare, it crumbled in my hands.

I didn’t have the time to try and guess what it might mean. There was no telling how much time

I had to ditch my half friend.

I got the legs to the gate, shoved them inside, and ran back for the rest. Moving the upper half wasn’t as easy. Not that it was heavier, but it felt more like moving a real body.

I grabbed the hands and pulled, dragging it along. I couldn’t take my eyes off the head as it bounced along the gravelly track bed. I don’t mean to be gruesome about it, but it was kind of gruesome. I had to keep telling myself it was a machine. Just a machine. Just a machine. A toaster oven. A lawn mower. A weed whacker.

Then the machine grabbed my leg.

I screamed like a little girl. The thing was still alive! Or whatever the robot equivalent of “alive” is. It yanked my leg, trying to pull me off my feet. I grabbed a fistful of rotten clothing and struggled to drag it the rest of the way into the flume cavern. I now had two body halves to deal with. The legs were dead. The upper torso wasn’t. I kicked at it, trying to get the grisly thing to let go. It was the single creepiest thing I had ever experienced in my life. Finally I gave the arm a sharp kick with my free leg and knocked it away. Without hesitation I ran for the flume and shouted, “Quillan!”

The flume came to life. I spun to face the upper half. It lay next to its lower half, facedown. Unmoving. I wondered if it had grabbed me in some kind of involuntary reaction, or if it could still think. I didn’t want to take any chances. I walked cautiously back to the legs, keeping my eyes on the upper half, ready for it to grab at me again. I bent down, grabbed the legs, and quickly dragged them toward the mouth of the tunnel. The thing still had its holster on with the pistol. I thought of grabbing the gun but remembered the blast of energy had no effect on dados. With a grunt I heaved the legs up and used the weight of its butt to fling the whole mess into the flume. It was time to get the upper half.

Unfortunately, the upper half decided it was time to get me. When I turned, I saw the dado up on its hands, bracing its body in a macabre handstand. Worse, it was running toward me. It was like some twisted horror movie. I moved one way, the torso mirrored me. I moved the other way, the torso did too. I faked back, then quickly circled behind it. Now the torso of the robot was between me and the flume. It may have been relentless, but it didn’t have much agility. It turned around to face me. Yes, face me. The head was upside down, but the eyes fixed on me. Its prey. It wasn’t going to give up.

Neither was I. The explosion of light and music blasted from the flume. I ran forward, swept up the torso, spun, and heaved it into the light. Even as it sailed away from me, its hands grasped at the air, trying to grab me. That’s a nightmare I won’t soon forget. The thing disappeared into the light, headed back to Quillan. Along with its legs. Good riddance.

I felt the tug of the flume as it tried to suck me along with it. The idea of sailing through the flume along with those gruesome body parts gave me the burst of adrenaline I needed to dig my heels in and back away from the tunnel. I didn’t need to be grappling with half a robot in the flume. I needed to be on First Earth, with Courtney.

Courtney. Right. Where was she? I wasn’t done yet. I had to get out of the gate and past the subway wreck without anyone realizing the crash was sort of my fault. We hadn’t been on First Earth for more than ten minutes and I was already longing to be somewhere else.

(CONTINUED)